Professor Micheal Osarenogowu Agho

Professor Micheal Osarenogowu Agho

By Nosa Osaigbovo nosaosaigbovo@yahoo.com

ON May 16, 2009, I spent about two hours with a man who had less than a day to live. He did not know it and neither did I. He was not on death row and did not suffer from an illness whose fatal finality had been accurately forecast

by doctors, as in the case of one sickle cell patient.It was in Benin City on a Saturday morning that had stretched its limbs but had not fully stirred. The murmuring of movements could be heard, but the clangour of a city in full cry was absent. The air had a sniff of sombreness. We were driven in the car of a senior Federal Government official to the home of a top Edo State civil servant. He was still in bed, but received us warmly when he came into the sitting room where we were already comfortably seated. Dr. Michael Osarenogowu Agho, Professor of Chemistry at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, was apprehensive about the fate of a building he had struggled to put up in Benin City, his hometown. A professor who practises probity is not rich and takes scholarship as his solace. Politicians build palaces and he is not envious of them. The professor had received a call in Bauchi that a task force set up by the Adams Oshiomhole government had knocked down the wall demarcating his property. He travelled to Benin City in the senior Federal Government official’s car to try to save his house. He had carefully taken all the legal steps in acquiring and building on the land. Survey and building plans were approved by government and he paid the necessary fees. Professor Agho was understandably shocked when he was informed that government had knocked down the wall without warning and had clearly stated its intention to demolish his house by flattening some houses in the same area. The government claimed the land belonged to it, but there was not even a signboard to indicate its ownership. The government did nothing while the buildings went up, but was heartlessly happy to bring them down. The senior Edo civil servant said nothing could be done to save Professor Agho’s house if it was built on government land. Professor Agho was not downhearted. There was a civilised calmness about him that was not reticence. He spoke softly but with the spontaneity and warmth of true friendship. I first met him in 2006, though our mutual friend, the senior Federal Government official, told me that we had actually met several years earlier. I remembered the place, but had no recollection of the meeting. In 2006, the three of us were driven in the senior Federal Government official’s car from Benin City to a state capital in the North. Professor Agho was returning to Bauchi. I soon got to know him pretty well. He studied in the United States and was awarded a university scholarship for superior academic performance. He returned to Nigeria after obtaining his doctorate. Professor Agho loved country music, my favourite kind of music. Our mutual friend, the senior Federal Government official, knows many country lyrics by heart. Professor Agho had studied at Texas and I sang to him a snatch of Marty Robbins’s ‘El Paso City’, a sad, haunting song about a cowboy who killed and died for love.

Professor Agho was listening to country music in the senior government official’s car when he was shot dead on Sunday, May 17 near Okpella in Edo State at 9.30 a.m. There were no intimations of his death when we parted around 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 16. It was a normal parting and the present and the future held hope and no dark forebodings. The professor sat in the passenger seat and our mutual friend and a colleague of his sat at the back. He wore a T-shirt. A car overtook and blocked that in which they were being driven. Three armed men jumped out of the car and one of them shot the professor in the chest through the windscreen. He aimed another shot at the driver. The murderer told the senior government official with ghoulish glee, ‘Senator, we have killed your Mopol and driver.’ They dragged him and his colleague out of his car, which carries a Federal Government number plate, and hustled them into a vehicle they had stolen at gunpoint. But the driver was not dead. The first shot that killed the professor had warned him and he moved faster than the bullet that was fired to kill him. The armed men saw blood on his clothes and believed he was dead. They did not know that it was the professor’s heart, healthy and young at 58, that had pumped the blood that drenched the driver. The driver crawled out of the car after it became eerily quiet. He waved down several vehicles but none of the drivers stopped. After what seemed like hours, a lorry driver, a man without much education, stopped where many expensive cars carrying important-looking men had sped past. The driver was taken to Okene and the police went with him to the murder scene and took the professor’s body to the mortuary. The armed men were kidnappers and even with proof that he was not a senator, they refused to release the senior government official. A female victim of a carjacking carried out by the kidnappers was shot dead by them when the car suddenly came to a stop.The senior government official and other victims were driven to Akure and from there to some other towns. They were then taken to the bush where they spent a night of continual threat and actual violence. A victim was shot in the leg because he told the kidnappers, whose number had swelled to about six, that he did not have the kind of money they were demanding for his freedom. The senior government official was released after two days of sheer terror. They used his ATM cards to withdraw money from his accounts. They gave policemen at checkpoints N2, 000 and their suspicion was not aroused! The policemen hailed the kidnappers as good and generous men. The kidnappers took their victims to Ibillo in Edo State and freed them after cashing substantial ransoms. The victims were lucky to be alive. But Professor Agho, who travelled to Benin City because government was about to destroy his house, did not return to his wife and three sons in Bauchi. Will their bereaved hearts ever be happy again? Will their tears, like in the Don Williams song, ever dry?

Comment:

DR. MICHAEL O. AGHO Nigeria Board Chair A native of Benin City, Edo, Nigeria, Professor Michael O. Agho received his PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from North Texas State University in 1983. The following year Dr. Agho began his academic career at Bayero University, in Kano, Nigeria, where he distinguished himself as teacher and researcher. From 1990 until his untimely death on May 17, 2009, Dr. Agho served as a professor of chemistry at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) in Bauchi, Nigeria. Professor Agho was also founding director of ATBU's zero emissions research center. During his five-year tenure as Director, the FMENV/ZERI Research Center undertook several important studies and conducted intensive training programs on such varied topics as the construction and management of plastic biodigesters and sand filtration techniques for well water. Dr. Agho served as Chairman of the Board for Leadership Initiatives (LI) in Nigeria until his death in 2009. He was deeply respected and trusted as both advocate and mentor in all aspects of LI's work in Bauchi State. When LI was new and unheard of there, he provided vital credibility with local press, students and university faculty. His advocacy within ATBU led directly to the successful launch of our first regional development program in Nigeria. As LI became established at ATBU, Dr. Agho's reputation opened the doors of local community and business leaders and helped forge the partnerships necessary to build thriving skills acquisition, computer literacy, and fish farming programs that continue to transform hundreds of lives. Without Professor Agho, Leadership Initiatives would not be the strong presence in Bauchi that it is today. We are honored to have our continuing work there counted among the legacies he has left in his absence.

A native of Benin City, Edo, Nigeria, Professor Michael O. Agho received his PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from North Texas State University in 1983. The following year Dr. Agho began his academic career at Bayero University, in Kano, Nigeria, where he distinguished himself as teacher and researcher. From 1990 until his untimely death on May 17, 2009, Dr. Agho served as a professor of chemistry at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) in Bauchi, Nigeria. Professor Agho was also founding director of ATBU's zero emissions research center. During his five-year tenure as Director, the FMENV/ZERI Research Center undertook several important studies and conducted intensive training programs on such varied topics as the construction and management of plastic biodigesters and sand filtration techniques for well water. Dr. Agho served as Chairman of the Board for Leadership Initiatives (LI) in Nigeria until his death in 2009. He was deeply respected and trusted as both advocate and mentor in all aspects of LI's work in Bauchi State. When LI was new and unheard of there, he provided vital credibility with local press, students and university faculty. His advocacy within ATBU led directly to the successful launch of our first regional development program in Nigeria. As LI became established at ATBU, Dr. Agho's reputation opened the doors of local community and business leaders and helped forge the partnerships necessary to build thriving skills acquisition, computer literacy, and fish farming programs that continue to transform hundreds of lives. Without Professor Agho, Leadership Initiatives would not be the strong presence in Bauchi that it is today. We are honored to have our continuing work there counted among the legacies he has left in his absence.

Prof. Agho was violently killed by armed men on Sunday, 17^th May, 2009 along Benin-Okene Expressway. He is survived by his wife, children and other relations

Subject: Re: The killing of Professor AghoMessage: I would like to use this medium of communication to thank the VC and staff of ATBU, Bauchi, Mike’s friends and other Nigerians for the beautiful letters, cards, magnificent support and for their friendship. We got so much comfort from your kind words and thoughts and Mike would have been very humbled and proud of the nice things you guys have said about him. The Agho family has taken great strength from your support which I\\\\\\\'m sure is exactly what Mike would have wanted.

The late Professor Michael Agho was my oldest brother and the killers have created a very big vacuum that would be difficult to fill in the family and nation. Having over 10 years of research and teaching, Mike would always tell me to consider coming home and contribute to research and teaching. Now that Mike is gone, my dream of coming home is gone too.

I can’t stop crying; I have lost my best friend, my big bros and my idol in a very tragic manner.

My questions to President Yar’Adua and Governor Adams Oshiomhole are:

Who are the killers of my late brother?

What are the Nigeria police doing about my brother’s case?

Time will tell if the current regime is a joke or a messiah

Also available at http://www.tribune.com.ng/20072009/fri/mosaic.html

Kingsley Agho, PhD, School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney, Australia.

Subject: Late Professor Michael Osarenogowu Agho - first anniversary

Message: On the occasion of the first anniversary of the death of my senior brother (late Professor Michael Osarenogowu Agho) who was killed by gunmen in Benin on his way back to Bauchi. Today marked a year those bastards took Mike away from us but the feelings of sadness and despair haven’t lifted from my heart. I have found myself mourning Mike everyday as if it was just yesterday Mike was taken away from us.

Today the Agho family of 48 Ekewan Road, Uzebu Quarters is today reflecting on Mike’s kindness, respect for mankind and contribution to research which still outwits others - that makes me feel, that Mike was still alive – For those who don’t know Mike, he was a are rare breed!!. As for me, I am so blessed and truly have much to be thankful for to have a brother like Mike.

If you want to read about Mike’s contributions to leadership initiatives in Nigeria, go to: http://www.leadershipinitiatives.org/who-alumni.htm

Guys, I want us as a group to use this opportunity to discuss gun and land law reforms in Edo state as a way of celebrating Mike’s death because published research article revealed that gun law reforms in Australia reduces firearm deaths (Chapman S, Alpers P, Agho K, Jones M, 2006) and I am of the view that gun and land law reforms may also reduce firearm deaths in Edo state.

Reference:

Chapman S, Alpers P, Agho K, Jones M. Australia’s 1996 gun law reforms: faster falls in firearm deaths, firearm suicides, and a decade without mass shootings. Inj Prev 2006; 12: 365-372.

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